The Truth Behind the Lies
by Neev
Summary: Now grown from a child to a young man, one of the children from Wolfwood's orphanage sets out to find out what really happened to the man who promised to always take care of them and yet never returned to make good on his promise.


Title: The Truth Behind the Lies Author: Neev (ozie@dol.net) Rating: Pg-13 Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the series. Specific warnings of anything else will be given for each chapter. Of course, knowing me, there will probably be shounen ai in the future. But.you never know. Summary: Now grown from a child to a young man, one of the children from Wolfwood's orphanage sets out to find out what really happened to the man who promised to always take care of them and yet never returned to make good on his promise.  
  
Notes: This was just a random idea that showed up in my head one day, prompted by ponderings of the last few episodes of the TV series. I'm not really sure where I'm going with it, or even if I'm going to finish it. Also, more that likely, most of the actual Trigun characters wont show up for a while yet.  
  
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It was the dog days of summer. Of course, planet Gunsmoke never had any season but summer and the dog days were considered to be mild compared to the unbearable, blistering heat the planet usually endured. To most other people, traveling in that kind of heat would have been unthinkable, but to the inhabitants of the planet who had never known anything else, the current relatively cool spell made for excellent traveling weather indeed. Thus the reason that Innokenti Nikolaev now stood in front of the church orphanage with a full backpack on his back and a worn and horribly out of date map in hand.  
  
The lanky sixteen-year-old squinted at the setting sun, trying to judge how much day light he had left. He had gotten a late start, which was hardly surprising. Being among the oldest of the abandoned children at the orphanage, and therefore one of the ones in charge, meant that there was always some little fight that needed to be worked out or something that needed to be fixed or finished or helped with. Not that Innokenti really minded it, under normal circumstances. But today he had really wanted to get packed and get an early start, but one thing had led to another and now the day way almost over.  
  
Innokenti's thin lips were pulled into a small frown as he considered his options. Perhaps he should just wait till tomorrow. He could get up early and.no. That wouldn't work. If he waited till tomorrow there would be breakfast to be made, and after that dishes to be washed. And by the time the dishes were all washed, it would be lunchtime and he would be roped into helping with that as well. And then, when lunch was over, there would be more dishes to do and probably several other things in need of cleaning or fixing. And he would happily go off to do those things, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't putting off leaving, he just simply too busy to go. In short, he would lose his nerve. Again. After all, he had really meant to make this trip when he turned sixteen. That had been eight months ago. No, he could not wait for tomorrow to leave. He had to leave now. After all, he wasn't going far - just to the town of November, a few miles away. If night fell before he got there, it was no big deal. It was cooler at night anyway. He knew the way.sort of. It had been a while since he'd left the orphanage, but he couldn't possibly get lost along the few miles to November. Right?  
  
Right. This was no time for him to hesitate. He couldn't stay here at the orphanage any longer. Not only was he getting too old, but also there were questions he wanted answered. He didn't know where to find those answers, nor even where to begin looking, but.he had to go. Though he loved the orphanage dearly, he felt trapped there, confined and nearly suffocated. There were to many questions that were unanswered - questions about himself, questions of his past, and most importantly, questions about what had happened to the man who had said he would always take care of them. What had happened to the black-clothed priest whose haphazard appearances at the orphanage had meant not only treats and celebration, but also the much-needed money to keep the orphanage running for another month or two? A man who claimed he would always be there to take care of them, yet had left one sweltering July day five years ago and never returned.  
  
The well-worn soles of Innokenti's boots crunched in the sun-baked sand as he stepped off the porch of the orphanage and began to walk toward the city of November. Despite the fact that it hadn't quite gone according to his plans, it felt good to finally be started on this trip. He felt excitement and eagerness, his steps full of energy as he walked. There was a sense of freedom now too, of finally throwing off the shackles that had been holding him back. They were, admittedly rather loose and comfortable shackles, but that was immaterial to Innokenti just then. He was finally going and he felt free. 


End file.
